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Press Release

For Immediate Release

Monday, April 15, 2013

Libertarian Party: Move Personal Independence Day from June to January

Every year, federal, state and local governments seize an enormous percentage of the money Americans earn. For several months of every year, taxpayers are effectively working for the government without compensation.

This year, according to the Tax Foundation, Americans must work until April 18, what they call Tax Freedom Day, to pay their taxes before they can finally start working for themselves instead, based on a total federal, state, and local tax burden of $4.22 trillion. If federal borrowing is added in, they point out, Tax Freedom Day would fall on May 9, another 21 days of Americans’ lives devoted to working for the government.

But is it really that soon?

As Nobel laureate economist Milton Friedman famously observed, “It cannot be emphasized too much that the real burden on the economy is what government spends (or mandates others to spend) rather than how much it receives in taxes.” In a 1974 Newsweek article, Friedman suggested giving a name to the day at which we stop working to pay all the expenses of government — total spending, not just current taxation. He dubbed it “Personal Independence Day.”

When total spending by all levels of government is taken into account, according to this estimate, the burden of government will reach $6.16 trillion for 2013.

This means that it won’t be until June 6 before Americans will finally be free to keep their earnings instead of paying for wasteful government spending. Personal Independence Day doesn’t arrive until nearly half the year has passed.

This enormous government burden is all attributable to Republicans and Democrats, who keep voting to increase the percentage of wealth confiscated year after year — forcing Americans to spend more and more of their lives as indentured servants to Big Government.

The Libertarian Party is the only political party that calls for an immediate end to high taxes, calling in its platform "for the repeal of the income tax, the abolishment of the Internal Revenue Service and all federal programs and services not required under the U.S. Constitution."

“As long as voters continue to cast ballots for Republicans and Democrats, they will continue to expand the number of days before workers can keep their earnings to support their families” said Carla Howell, Libertarian Party executive director. “The Libertarian Party calls for immediately slashing both taxes and government spending — permanently — and returning that money to the workers and taxpayers who earned it.”

“Vote Libertarian and move Personal Independence Day to January,” she said.

The Libertarian Party is America's third largest political party, founded in 1971. Our vision is for a world in which all individuals can freely exercise the natural right of sole dominion over their own lives, liberty and property by building a political party that elects Libertarians to public office, and moving public policy in a libertarian direction.